Neither is a new technology, but General Motors is the first to combine them in this market and this segment. This is a big deal because the vibration that comes with shutting off half the cylinders is way harder to absorb or mask without a torque converter in the driveline.
Torque converters are basically fluid couplings, and fluid is great at absorbing vibes. And even when they're locked for fuel savings, their housings can incorporate nifty pendulum mass dampers tuned to absorb torsional wiggles.
All a multiplate clutch pack can do in a twin-clutch system is loosen its grip enough to allow a few 10s of rpm slippage, so that's what happens during the transition between modes. The team still wasn't quite satisfied with the quality of these transitions as of our development drive ride-along, though I couldn't detect four-cylinder operation from the passenger seat.
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